Gluon, the so-called messenger particle of the strong nuclear force, which binds subatomic particles known as quarks within the protons and neutrons of stable matter as well as within heavier, short-lived particles created at high energies. Quarks interact by emitting and absorbing gluons, just as electrically charged particles interact through the emission and absorption of photons.

In quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the theory of the strong force, the interactions of quarks are described in terms of eight types of massless gluon, which, like the photon, all carry one unit of intrinsic angular momentum, or spin. Like quarks, the gluons carry a “strong charge” known as colour; this means that gluons can interact between themselves through the strong force. In 1979 confirmation of the conception came with the observation of the radiation of gluons by quarks in studies of high-energy particle collisions at the German national laboratory, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY; “German Electron-Synchrotron), in Hamburg.

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any member of a group of elementary subatomic particles that interact by means of the strong force and are believed to be among the fundamental constituents of matter. Quarks associate with one another via the strong force to make up protons and neutrons, in much the same way that the latter...

in physics, the theory that describes the action of the strong force. QCD was constructed in analogy to quantum electrodynamics (QED), the quantum field theory of the electromagnetic force. In QED the electromagnetic interactions of charged particles are described through the emission and...